At present, at franchise shops such as so-called convenience stores, store front stock shelf typically called store fixtures are installed in so-called commodity sales floor. Typically at a position of so-called cash register, a sales processing device called POS (Point Of Sales) terminal or electronic cash register, is installed.
In this configuration, an ordinary user (consumer) picks up a desired over-the-counter commodity from the store front stock shelf, brings it to a position of cash register, and a shop clerk executes sales processing of the over-the-counter commodity by using the sales processing device.
Such the sales processing device executes the sales processing based on a commodity ID data attached to each of the over-the-counter commodities. More specifically, a general sales processing device includes a keyboard unit and/or a barcode reader.
On the other hand, each over-the-counter commodity has a JAN (Japanese Article Number) code, which is the commodity ID data, placed thereon in a form of barcode image and a text of numerical sequence.
Then, the commodity ID data is entered into the sales processing device, by allowing the barcode reader to optically read the barcode image, or by entering the numerical sequence through the keyboard unit.
In general franchise shops, a backyard stock shelf is installed in the backyard apart from the position of cash register. The backyard stock shelf keeps the over-the-counter commodities to be replenished to the store front stock shelf.
Therefore, when the shop clerk finds that the over-the-counter commodities are out of stock, or only a few of them are in stock on the store front stock shelf, the shop clerk replenishes the over-the-counter commodities from the backyard stock shelf to the store front stock shelf.
By the way, a part of the over-the-counter commodities, such as cigarette packs, is housed in the store front stock shelf disposed in the vicinity of the sales processing device at the position of the cash register on the counter, so as to make it not readily accessible by the ordinary users. Accordingly, the ordinary user who wants to buy such over-the-counter commodity orally indicates an order of purchase to the shop clerk at the position of cash register.
Various proposals have been made aiming at assisting commodity sales at the above-described franchise shops (see Patent Documents 1 to 5, for example).
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-129268
[Patent Document 2] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-303228
[Patent Document 3] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-092384
[Patent Document 4] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-338345
[Patent Document 5] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H11-086135